It was about six o’clock the next morning that Jack Harvey, still sleeping soundly, was rudely awakened. Henry Burns was shaking him violently.
“Jack, wake up!” cried Henry Burns. “Wake up and get your clothes on. There’s something the matter. The Viking’s gone. Yes, she’s really gone out of the harbour; for I’ve been clear down to the shore to see. It isn’t any joke. Hurry up. I’ll get the fellows out.”
A few moments later, Henry Burns, followed by Harvey and the three Warren boys, was running for the shore.
CHAPTER XX.
FLEEING IN THE NIGHT
Southport was very quiet of a Sunday morning, the sleepy aspect of its weather-beaten, low buildings taking on an even more drowsy appearance with the Sabbath calm, and without the sign of any activity along the shore and in the harbour to interrupt its rest. The faint tinkle of a cow-bell, or the mild bleating of a few sheep coming in from a near-by pasture, only served to accentuate the stillness.
The whole island sparkled with the morning sunlight, the rain-drops of the night before gleaming on bushes and grass before they vanished under its warmth and with the drying wind. The waters of the bay rolled away clear and blue, ruffled a little by the freshening breeze, and here and there showing patches of a darker hue, where a wind-flaw bore down quick and sharp and flayed the water.
On the point, in front of the tent, stood the boys that had dashed down from the Warren cottage, with Tom and Bob, rudely aroused from their morning nap, and hastily dressed in trousers and sweaters.
There was no comfort nor hope in the view that extended before them. Down between the islands, a schooner was running to sea, winged out before the favouring breeze. Nearer, a coaster, light and drawing little water, was beating up the bay, bound for Benton, to load with lumber. Over toward the Cape was a fisherman, with stubby mast and no topmast, skirting alongshore.
But there was no yacht, sailing or drifting. There was no yacht Viking anywhere to be seen. Nor could she have sunk at the mooring, for at that depth of water her topmast would be showing. However, half suspecting some trick might have been played on them, and the yacht taken out into deeper water and sunk, they went out in a rowboat and the canoe, and examined the water for quite a distance, all about.
“We’re losing precious time, though,” said Henry Burns. “The Viking’s been stolen. The first thing we’ve got to do, is to run over to the mainland and send a telegram down to Stoneland—though I’m afraid, with this breeze blowing all night, she’s got past there long before this. We’ll telegraph on to Portland, and to Boston, too, and have the police on the watch.”